Review by Stephanie Scaife
If Machete felt like they were flogging a dead horse then Machete Kills is very much flogging a rotten, decomposed dead horse, which is as sad and depressing as you might imagine.
Much like everyone else, I was fairly taken with Robert Rodriguez’s fake trailer for Machete that accompanied his and Tarantino’s hit and miss bag of B-movie homage in Grindhouse, and when the first feature length incarnation hit screens in 2010 I was really hoping that it would live up to the promise of the trailer. It didn’t. It was a gimmick that worked extremely well as a short, but as a film it grew old very quickly and what was initially good fun soon became cynical, lazy and more than a little offensive (and not in a good way). Then when I found out that there was a sequel on the way I was more than a little apprehensive, and it turns out I was right to be so. Of course being thrown into the film with a yet another trailer for a proposed third film, Machete Kills Again… In Space didn’t help matters either.
Danny Trejo, of course, returns as ex-federale cum secret agent Machete who is recruited by the President (Charlie Sheen, here credited by his birth name Carlos Estevez) to take out Mendez (Demian Bichir), an insane revolutionary who suffers from a multiple personality disorder and who also happens to have a nuclear warhead pointed at Washington. With the aid of undercover agent Miss San Antonio (Amber Heard) Machete heads south of the border, all the while dodging various mercenaries and other ne’er do wells all intent on claiming the bounty on his head. This is where one of the only fun elements of the film comes into play in the form of El Camaleón, a mercenary whose name may give you a clue as to why his appearance changes (Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr. Antonio Banderas and Lady Gaga all take a turn here).
Less fun however is Desdemona (Sofia Vergara), a man-hating dominatrix who leads a band of scantily clad working girls on the trail of Machete and Mendez following the death of her daughter Cereza (Vanessa Hudgens). Although a certain level of misogyny and tight fitting clothing is a given with any exploitation film, there was something about Vergara’s character that left a particularly bad taste in my mouth. I’m fairly sure her ammunition-filled underwear and monologue about chewing her father’s balls off were supposed to be funny, and they really weren’t. Elsewhere we also have appearances from Michelle Rodriguez reprising the role as Luz, along with the likes of Tom Savini, William Sadler and Marko Zaror in a who’s who line-up of various cult figures.
Mel Gibson shows up as Voz, a crazed weapons dealer who is the real mastermind behind the nuclear bomb and who (along with Bichir) is the only person in Machete Kills that appears to be making any sort of effort to act at all, and that’s probably because he’s a crazy old racist and he desperately wants to redeem himself in some way. Really there isn’t much point in trying to explain anything about the overly convoluted plot; after all, that’s not the reason why people watch and enjoy films like Machete Kills. Yes, there is a lot of violence, corny one liners, half-naked chicks, crazy weapons (a particular favourite is a gun that turns people inside out) and it tries awfully hard to be funny. I think that perhaps if you’ve had a few beers and are surrounded by your mates then this could have the potential to be watchable, in a so-bad-it’s-sometimes-okay sort of a way, but when crammed into a press screening whilst completely sober I found the whole thing to be quite boring and more than a little bit dumb.
Machete Kills is on general release in the UK from Friday 11 October.